These guys are global companies. Goldman has half its revenues come from outside the U.S.. They can find profits wherever they need to.

On a year-over-year basis, Lehman's results are outstanding, while the negative sequential comparisons are a product of the strength of the 2005 third quarter.

It's in last place with no real assets to improve their position. Discover desperately needs to have an improved value proposition for the cardholders. That's where it all begins.

Its track record is outstanding, they've earned tens of billions of dollars over the last several years and they've never come close to having a negative trading line. I'd say that's reasonable risk-reward.

It's not likely a firm would double its revenue in a sequential comparison. One should assume that some of that's proprietary trading.

Asset management acquisitions are safer, in our view, given the predictability of earnings, although they will likely be more expensive than banks or consumer finance companies.

This is the first quarter in a long time where you will see year-over-year comparisons that are negative. And we'll probably see results for most of the quarters in 2005 being down on a year-over-year basis.

Our estimate of $340 million in advisory revenue easily places the quarter as the highest for the firm post-bubble, and should move 2005 advisory revenues about 28% over the prior year.

The transaction makes a lot of sense strategically at a time when U.S. regulators are frowning upon financial incentives to brokers for pushing in-house funds.

This was a very strong report, both in terms of asset flows, account adds and trading activity.